


Relearn to Draw Him

by SouthernMoonshine



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Art, Gen, Post CA:WS, Romantic Friendship, Second person POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-05
Updated: 2014-06-05
Packaged: 2018-02-03 14:00:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1747220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthernMoonshine/pseuds/SouthernMoonshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post CA:WS. Steve thinks an awful lot about Bucky, and tries to let him go. It's hard to let go of someone you know will come back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Relearn to Draw Him

Natasha brings you your sketchpad and pencils while you're in the hospital. You're grateful for the distraction. Healing is a slow process and you've never been overly patient. The first thing you try to draw, of course, is _him_. The sketches come out all wrong, and it takes you all of your time in the hospital to figure out why.

You pull out your old sketchpads and compare.

You're drawing him all wrong. 

You're trying to draw him as you used to: in bold rough strokes, blocking out his shoulders, his eyes. He used to be bright, vibrant, owned the room when he walked into it. The roughness suited, the geometrical shapes and _prescence_ of him. That was Bucky, the man you remember, with his sharp cocky smile and dark _seeing_ eyes. Sam catches you holding up a sketch of him as you remember: sniper rifle cradled in the crook of his arm, stare level, fingers curled to the stock and lips curled in a tiny smirk.

You wonder how you got the depth of the eyes and Sam says, "We call that the Thousand Yard stare these days. Jesus, how old was he then?"

"Just turned twenty," you answer softly, and wonder when that smile got so sharp.

Staring at the old sketches, the new ones that are wrong, and remembering Bucky as he is now, the Winter Soldier, you relearn how to draw him. Page after page, graphite staining your fingers and the side of your hand, eraser crumbs caught in the creases of your jeans. And the way you draw him...changes. 

No more the rough outline, the bold angles. Now he needs the smooth curves, the fading chiroscuro, the sleek outlines you've associated with Natasha. You remember the way he moved in the fight, economical and hunter grace; unobtrusive and sliding out of notice. Still arresting but no longer commanding. Insiduous. The sketches begin to flow over the pages, and the strangeness of his face begins to become familiar again, the shape of his shoulders held ready for the fight. 

Comes the day when, heart aching, you try to draw him as he _was_ and find you can no longer do it.

That page, half-finished, is crinkled and blurred with waterspots.

Sam tries to talk to you about it. Natasha stops him. She understands this is your way of working through the grieving process, the wild artist's obsession you still have living in your bones and running through your veins. You fight now but you never let go of dreaming, of the love and passion of creation. The need is still there, the drive you cannot thwart, the hunger for beauty: to capture all you see and preserve that moment for memoy, for understanding. You hold on to let go, that paradox of art, and when it is done you feel emptied out and silent, at peace like the silence of a cathedral after the solemn "Amen."

You dimly remember church and Bucky, scrubbed pink behind his ears and hissing in whispers at you under the hymns. You remember the childish satisfaction with the holiness, the awe, the peace of the echoing ceilings and stained glass.

You sit in the park and draw the spires of the church against the sky. You draw the people in the park. Here, drawing, your sketchpad on your drawn-up knees, you become invisible. No longer are you a national hero, recognized, praised: you become a plebian nobody, ignored in your stillness. You watch the people and remember how Bucky would tell you about how it felt to be a sniper, silent and unseen but seeing all. You think, though, it's almost cheating when you do it now, with how absorbed in their own lives people are these days. Faces turned to their phones, their electronic devices, talking, headphones on... But there are some people who _do_ see you: they look and you learn the type, see the clarity in them.

You recognize the man as that type when you sketch his shoulders bowed under his jacket, his cap shading his face. 

He looks up, he _sees_ you, and he fades from sight.

You leap to your feet, pencils and eraser scattering. _Bucky._

But he's gone, and you know it. Knew it the moment he simply slid from your vision.

It still takes you twenty minutes to gather your supplies again.

You don't hope to see him again. He's a ghost and you have your memories, your pictures, sketchpads full of catching him on paper and letting him go in your heart. 

They call it so many things these days: you still call it what you know it to be. _Love_ , and how you both felt it, the tenderness and fierce love. Oh you would have given him your heart in his hands if only you'd known how: he'd told you over and over to only ask what you needed and it was done. The way you'd sit together on the benches in the cold of the war, the way he'd save you parts of his rations, the way he'd always smile when he saw you, heard you, knew you were there. The way he'd salvage you little bits and stubs of pencils so you could draw on bits of wrappers and scraps of supply lists and torn pieces of canvas. The way you'd bring him gloves because he would always lose his and his fingers were always cold. 

You remember so much. All the little things. The way he cleaned his rifle, the way he'd fly down the stairs at home, how his shoes wore out at the heels first for the way he'd drum them on the floor, the bony arch of his bare feet pressed against your flank on a hot summer childhood day.

You sit on the park bench and you draw your old street from memory; the buildings, the faces, the memories. And you can't...you can't draw him anymore, the way he used to be, and you leave a blank space on the page. Your stained fingers whisper over the white.

For a long moment, you think you're imagining it: the press of a shoulder against yours, an elbow nestled against your ribcage. The echo of a memory.

Your spine stiffens, and the weight presses. You freeze for a long, long breathless moment, dying to turn your head and see him there.

Instead you let your head bow again, fingers uncurling from your pencil.

You never used to have to see him to know he was there.

You breathe, and close your eyes, and something tied cold within you unravels. Your eyes open and you touch graphite to paper.

The old, bold strokes, the lift of his chin, the way he'd throw back his shoulders and smile all sharp and fierce. A lion, a prince, a boy who grew to a man you admired and all but worshipped: a friend so close you breathed together and dreamed alike under the moonlight.

It isn't until you sigh that long slow breath and lean back, light and hollow, that the body against you fades away. You can't help but look: no, he's gone, and you knew he would be.

You look down at the finished piece, and smile involuntarily.

He brought himself back to you.

You will dream together again, soon.


End file.
